New Exhibition Hall for Seaport in Mystic, Conn., Has Nautical Inspiration

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An artist's rendering of the Thompson Exhibition Building, which broke ground in January in Mystic, Conn.

By Lisa Prevost

May 12, 2015

MYSTIC, Conn. — When Chad Floyd took on the task of designing a major new exhibit hall for Mystic Seaport, the maritime museum here, he did not take his cues from the architecture in the museum’s recreated 19th-century village. Instead, he looked for inspiration in the sea.

A partner in Centerbrook Architects and Planners, in Centerbrook, Conn., Mr. Floyd studied the curved hulls of old wooden sailing ships like the Charles W. Morgan, the last American whaler and a main attraction of the museum. He thought about the spiraled shell of the nautilus, “the curvilinear movement of the waves, and sails blown full of wind.”

Then, with these forms in mind, he drew a 14,000-square-foot building unlike anything else on the museum’s 19-acre campus. The structure’s contemporary wood-and-glass design is defined by a roof slanted like the sweeping curve of a wave, and supported by spectacularly long laminated timber frames, to be left exposed like the ribs of a wooden ship’s hull.

The building will double as a visitor center at the northern end of the campus, its striking facade marking the gateway to the museum for visitors driving in on Route 27. A radical departure for the museum and its first major physical change since the 1960s, the $11.5 million building will greatly expand exhibit capabilities upon its completion in September 2016, helping to make Mystic Seaport more of a year-round attraction, says Stephen C. White, the museum’s president.

“We wanted a building that would say, ‘Come on in. Something’s happening here. Things are moving forward,’” Mr. White said.

Established in 1929 to preserve the country’s fading maritime culture, Mystic Seaport is on the Mystic River, where shipbuilding thrived before the 1900s. The museum invites visitors to stroll through its historical village, with craftspeople and storytellers, climb aboard the Morgan and numerous other fishing vessels, observe the workings of a functioning shipyard, and glimpse portions of the museum’s extensive collections in one of several small exhibit halls.

But like many living history and outdoor museums, Mystic Seaport has had to constantly explore new ways to keep up attendance. Such attractions were at their peak in the 1970s, when more families tended to take car vacations, shopping centers were closed on Sundays, and children’s organized sports did not consume so much time, said Tom Kelleher, the vice president of the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums, and a historian and curator at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts.

Faced with declining attendance and increased competition, many of these museums are becoming more creative with special events programming, Mr. Kelleher said, “trying to find ways to engage the public to meet them where they are, rather than saying, ‘If they’d only pay attention, they’d realize how historically authentic we are.’”

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An artist's rendering showing the view from the deck of the new exhibition hall.

The new building — to be called the Thompson Exhibition Building — is intended to offer a dynamic indoor space to entertain visitors when the weather is not conducive to wandering around boats outside, Mr. White said. The museum has so far raised just over $7 million for the project, which broke ground in January.

The exhibit hall will claim 5,000 square feet, “a big room by any museum standard,” Mr. Floyd said, with movable walls and high ceilings to maximize flexibility. The lighting is designed by George Sexton Associates, the Washington firm whose list of museum credits includes the Museum of Modern Art.

In addition to housing a reception lobby, ticketing center and gift shop, the building will be the anchor for a newly designed quadrangle with a center green flanked by smaller existing galleries. The reconfiguration required the demolition of three buildings, including the museum’s former library. The books are now housed at the climate-controlled Collections Research Center.

The center houses varied collections, including ship figureheads, models, some 1,500 pieces of scrimshaw, shipbuilding tools, paintings, more than a million photographs, logs, sailors’ journals, charts and textiles. Most are seen infrequently, since the museum currently lacks the space to display more than 10 percent of the items at any one time, said Paul O’Pecko, the vice president for collections and research.

The new building will enable the museum to show off more of its holdings, allowing multiple exhibits at one time and providing more generous dimensions. For example, Mr. O’Pecko said, the high ceilings will allow for the unfurling of ships’ banners, some of which stretch to 50 feet, and the display of larger figureheads, which can weigh as much as 1,000 pounds.

In addition, the building’s high security and its temperature and humidity control will make it easier to bring in exhibits from outside, like an exhibition of J. M. W. Turner’s sea paintings produced by the National Maritime Museum in England and displayed last year at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.

“There was no way we could get that exhibit here for two reasons: space and security,” Mr. O’Pecko said. “But we’ll be able to really get some drop-dead things here now.”

The building’s daring design is a welcome departure from the local penchant for traditional New England architecture, says Rod Desmarais, a developer and chairman of the Downtown Mystic Merchants Association. The village of Mystic extends into the towns of Groton and Stonington, on either side of the river, and in Groton in particular, where most of downtown sits, “what has always been dictated is you have to replicate what was here before,” he said.

The exhibition hall, however, evokes the mind-set in “bigger-minded places,” he said, showing that “with taste and the proper design, you can come up with something that really benefits the area.”

“That’s a big, huge step here,” Mr. Desmarais said. “It took some courage to do that.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B8 of the New York edition with the headline: The Sea Inspires a New Exhibit Hall at Mystic Seaport. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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